A Case for New HIV Prevention Technologies

I bring to your attention the following extract from a story that I posted previously on this blog:

" HARARE, 14 April 2010 (Plus News) - A new report by Zimbabwe's National AIDS Council (NAC), showing a dramatic rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among people aged 15 to 24 in the capital, Harare, has health experts worried that the country's success in reducing HIV could be unravelling.

STIs heighten vulnerability to HIV infection, and this age group is one of the hardest hit. According to the NAC report, more than 24,000 people were treated for STIs in 2009, compared to 8,500 cases recorded in 2008; over 60 percent of the cases were women."

The bigger problem that most of us may have overlooked is that "60% of the cases were women." Women continue to be at the receiving end of the consequences of bad sexual decisions. No matter how much we can argue about women having been empowered, it is evident from the above statistic that women are still being subjected to unsafe sex.

The sad scenario being painted here is even made worse by the revelation that these are women between the 15-24 year age group. One would have thought that this generation of women is more empowered than those of the 25+ generation.

It therefore goes without argument that there is an urgent need for new alternative HIV prevention technologies that will empower women to protect themselves against STIs and HIV.

Microbicides and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) trials underway are key biomedical developments that hold a lot of hope for women all over the world who cannot negotiate for safe sex. It is my hope that these clinical researches will yield the desired results and put women in a position to access SAFE & SATISFYING sex.